


the moon — bloodstained shield

by smallredboy



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Drowning, Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, M/M, Pretentious, The Fall (Hannibal)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25080634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/smallredboy
Summary: The moments before and after the fall.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24
Collections: Froday Flash Fiction Little & Monthly Specials 2020, Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 11, Prompt Table Challenge: Clouds and Shadows





	the moon — bloodstained shield

**Author's Note:**

> **h/c bingo:** drowning  
>  **clouds and shadows @ creativechallenges:** falling  
>  **fffc's 100th special:** moon
> 
> enjoy!

Will's state of mind as he kills Dolarhyde with Hannibal is less than ideal.

He can feel his blood pumping, his ears ringing, the way his whole body contracts and shifts with the desire to kill and maim. It's disgusting, simply rotten — and he wants more of it. He wants to kill and maim and destroy another life, watch as their life slips from their eyes. The idea makes him revel with the need for it.

But he can't. As he stabs Dolarhyde, as Hannibal rips his throat open with his teeth, he watches as he sinks onto the floor, blood like an angel's wings. 

He sucks in a breath and looks at his own bloodied hands, raises one of them up to contrast against the moon. 

"It really does look black in the moonlight," he stutters out.

Hannibal smiles at him and offers him his hand. He takes it. He's shaking so bad, but he can manage to get closer to him. Their bond is unspeakable, their bond is rotten to its core with love and gluttony — he wouldn't exchange it for the world. But he needs to have a grip on it, on morality, on what is happening to him, what will happen to him if he keeps going down this path.

He can count the people he has killed in one hand, thankfully. If he goes off, runs away with Hannibal, how long until it exceeds that by a large margin?

"This is all I ever wanted for you, Will," Hannibal says. He sounds so exhausted and so in love. He looks beautiful.

He looks back, briefly, at the destroyed body of Francis Dolarhyde. That chunk of his throat missing, the multiple points where he is still bleeding. His cheek hurts, aches in a way he can't begin to name, blood still oozing from the cut.

He looks back at Hannibal, thinks of the hunt they have shared, right here, right now.

"It's beautiful," he says.

Hannibal holds him. It's such a tender gesture that falls far away from the thousand of terrible things Hannibal has done, to him and to everyone else; he holds him and he thinks of that time he patched his wounds, bandaged him after he killed Tier. He thinks of him touching his shoulder, back when everything was okay — back when he thought everything was okay.

He puts his head to Hannibal's chest. The moon looks down at them, shines its black, merciless light into them.

This is the part that surprises him — Hannibal knows, Hannibal realizes what he is doing, but he doesn't pull away. He doesn't stop him from sending them down the cliff, into the water. He could do anything right now, but he doesn't. He holds him, and Will holds him with the same ferocity.

Will closes his eyes, and he sends them reeling over the bluffs, into the unforgiving ocean; hopes they're not spit back out.

* * *

The taste of salt water overwhelms him, hurts as it sinks into his wounds. He gasps as he manages to pull his head above water, sees Hannibal next to him, seemingly as alive as he is.

His legs hurt. He's not sure how many bones he has broken, but he knows there must be a count somewhere. It hurts to swim; it hurts to move. 

He struggles to keep his head above water — he sinks down, feels it overwhelm his lungs, and for one second he considers letting it be. Perhaps he should let himself die, as this is what he pushed them over the cliff for. He doesn't want the water to spit them back out. But then his survival instincts kick in and he pulls back, gasps for air, coughs and chokes.

He barely notices it at first, but Hannibal pulls an arm around his waist, helps him swim. He's dizzy, barely not drowning, and he doesn't know how to categorize everything happening to him. They're alive — that is all he can think of. _They're alive_. 

The ocean spits them back out and Will lays to rest on a deserted beach. He doesn't know how far away or how close from everything that happened they are. He doesn't know how close Dolarhyde's battered body is. He doesn't know if their hunt is close or far.

He only knows that the moon that makes the blood look black remains there, impassive, staring them down.

He coughs and spits still, like he is drowning without drowning. The salt in his lungs makes it hard to breathe.

"Are you okay?" he asks Hannibal, hands gripping fruitlessly at the shifting sand.

"Yes," he breathes out. "Yes, I'm quite alright." He coughs in the same manner he's struggling with. "Are — are you?"

"Yeah," he says. He wipes his face with his clean hand; there's no blood anymore, their sins washed away by the sea. "We should… we should get moving."

"Perhaps," he says. "But we are too weak to move. We should stay here, at least for the night."

"People will come here," he replies. "People will come here and we'll be caught. I'd prefer to avoid that."

Hannibal, after struggling, manages to get up. He offers him his hand, just like at the bluff, and he takes it, gets up shakily. 

"We'll be just fine, Will," Hannibal says, as much as he knows that was not what he wanted. That he didn't dream of them being _just fine_. 

The sea spits them back out, with the moon as its witness, as they get out of that beach and into the unknown.


End file.
